Star
could feel the thunder in her joints. She had been among the first to
receive the new genetic treatment for diabetes, back when the work
was still in once piece, and it'd had some unexpected side effects.
Of course, her diabetes was gone. It was a good thing too, she knew.
Those with dietary disorders had been among the first to sicken and
die when first rations and then starvation hit the population. She
was lucky; she was a survivor.

But
she could still feel the thunder in her joints. It wasn't real
thunder. Everyone knew that it was just the bombing, a series or
breathtakingly beautiful and devastating colored lights that rained
down on the country night and day. But nobody called them bombs: they
were just 'the thunder'.

It
made her shiver as she crouched at the mouth of the tiny
cement-and-rebar cave she had stowed in with her friend, Judas. She
had had another name some time long ago, but it had been lost before
even the bombing and was surely forgotten to anyone except Judas
herself now. Star hadn't really known her before the bombing,
except in passing between classes, but they'd wound up together in
the aftermath the day their school was finally bombed into paint
chips and rusting pipe. They'd worked well together, and things had
worked out for a while.

Now
they relied on one another. Star stared through the rain. The bombing
was a long way off, and had been for several months now. Not even the
remnants of the Guard came around anymore. There weren't enough
supplies for the troops, and nothing to forage in this sector of what
used to be a city. Judas and Star were both glad; the Guard was as
much an enemy to their survival as the bombing, and things were
finally starting to grow back. Judas would have been checking on the
nearest patch of green during the day, Star knew. She was always
anxious to see how much it had grown and how long it would be until
she could plant a garden or something.

Now
it was night, however. Star could see little enough in the flashes of
multicolored lights, and she'd never see the patch of peach-fuzz
green that Judas sighed about every evening.

Her
hands were shaking. The thunder was starting to work its way deeper
into her bones, they both knew. Soon she'd be shaking too hard to
do anything—and Judas would have to leave her. Neither of them
spoke about it much. The tremors had gotten better once the thunder
moved off to the north of them, but after her initial recovery she
had begun to deteriorate again.

She
tapped her fingers against the cement she was leaning against, trying
to ignore the faint numbness at the tips, to mask the involuntary
twitches. Judas was sleeping somewhere behind her—she had been out
foraging while the sun was up.

The
thunder was the worst during the day. Star was forced to hide deep in
the bowls of the cement jungle, where the concrete spared her from
the reverberations. If she were to go out during the day… she would
probably have a seizure and never recover. The threat had gone
unspoken when they'd realized the seriousness of the shaking, but
Judas had begun taking more and more of the day shifts.

Slowly,
Star collected herself mentally. She stood and glanced back into the
safety of the cave, the warm den where her companion lay dreaming,
and then set off slowly into the rain to look for some remaining
store of food or clothes or medicine that hadn't been picked over
months ago or been spoiled. Every now and then she would hide under a
concrete overhang for a few minutes, convincing herself that she was
just warming up while the tremors subsided.

When
Judas awoke, the first thing that she did was gather Star's
customary pile of soggy clothing and to spread them out across the
concrete. They would be baked dry in an hour or so, and warm when it
was time for Star to awaken. Then, after grabbing her scrap-and-rags
knapsack and giving the area around their hole a precursory scan, she
slipped off between the slabs of unforgiving grey and black.

The
thunderstorms had let up at dawn, as usual. Neither of the pair was
sure whether the strange new weather pattern, which was begun about a
year ago, was the result of a climate change, some new enemy weapon,
or just a strange act of god. Judas considered it a godsend, though.
It kept Star from pushing too hard during the day while letting Judas
gather just enough to get them by. She didn't tell Star that she
went outside their city sector, into the places where there were
still a few intact buildings to scrounge from—rather than just
foundations and walls.

As
she worked her way across the wasteland—carefully, because they
didn't have any resources to spare over infected cuts and
scrapes—she kept an eye on the low-laying clouds above. They
lingered each day, making the heat feel all the more oppressive while
filling the girl with pervasive paranoia. She had no way to see or
hear the aircraft coming until she saw the flashes, heard the
thunder. But the lights were always miles away in the distance, no
matter how frequently she scanned the skies.

Eventually
she reached the landmark she struggled to anew each day, the remains
of a lightening rod. It had been stricken on the first day of the
attacks. She could remember strolling past it each day on the way to
school. It had been melted and bent into a curlicue, but remained
tall enough to be seen most of the time. Next to it, a stretch of
unmaimed road, complete with yellow and white dotted lines, began. It
didn't go very far, but it was always a relief after the arduous
journey from the cool, shady cave. As per her routine, Judas paused
in some shade near to the lightening rod and pulled out her lunch. On
this day, it was half of a granola bar and a bottle of some brackish
water, collected each night in a tarp and bottled each dawn by Star.

After
her repast, Judas finished her journey into the good foraging areas.
They were mostly run by gangs now, but one girl didn't attract much
notice, especially when she was so emaciated that she hardly seemed
female.

She
quickly made her way past the fronts of picked-over, half-demolished
shops until she found some unfamiliar buildings. The thunder was
louder here, and she was starting to get nervous. She ducked into the
unfamiliar former shop she found.

The
inside was disappointing. It looked to have already been squeezed
dry, full of nothing put empty aluminum shelves and litter. Judas had
thought about gathering up some of the shelves, to reinforce the
jumble they lived in, but they were deceptively heavy, and she had
not been able to find a clear path she could carry one along—even
with Star's help.

She
was losing time fast, she realized as she wandered up and down
aisles, eyeballing the trash carefully. She couldn't keep making
these kinds of trips much longer. Soon she would have to make them
two-day trips, and then she'd have to tell Star, or she'd come
after her, all worried and protective. Even if she did tell Star, she
would doubtlessly insist on tagging along. The trips took her closer
to the epicenter of the thunder every day, though. Judas sighed in
frustration and kicked a shelf with a mangled boot before turning a
corner.

Waiting
for her at the end of the next aisle was a person.

Judas
froze and stared. It was the closest she had been to a person other
than Star in she wasn't even sure how long because she generally
scurried off when she saw anyone else. Just because she didn't
necessarily look like a girl didn't mean that the gangs would
hesitate to rape her—or even just kick her around for fun.

He
didn't look like he would be doing much kicking, and he didn't
look like he numbered among the recently kicked either. His coat was
too large, but well-repaired, and he wore decent-looking boots. He
didn't look starved, either, which was a rarity. He was probably a
few years younger, she figured. He had the especially haunted look of
those who had been just on the verge of young adulthood when the
thunder came. They had especially blank eyes.

Both
paused, standing and staring. Finally, he began to walk slowly
towards Judas. When she saw him move forward, she crept backwards,
until her back was against the wall. He sped up, and she did, too,
scuttling sideways a few feet before turning and running.

"Hey!
Wait!" he yelled. She could hear the flap of his boot falls, even
over the sound of the thunder and her own feet. "Just hold up!
Wait!" She didn't. She ran until she was out of breath and her
lungs and sides were sending shooting pains through the rest of her
body. Then she began to make abrupt turns, one after the other,
doubling and re-doubling back and forth until she wasn't sure where
she was, or how to get home. The whole time she could hear him behind
her.

Eventually
she reached a dead end and spun around sharply, skidding on litter
and shit. He stood at the end of the pseudo-alley—formed by the
remaining walls of two buildings and the rubble from another—and
panted heavily. She was laboring to draw her own breaths slowly and
evenly. After a few minutes he seemed to have gulped enough oxygen,
and he began to walk towards her. Still breathing heavily, she backed
up until she had a wall of jagged cement at her back, and then froze.
She was surprised that no other gang members had appeared yet.

"Are
you okay?" he asked, still breathing heavily. His voice sounded out
of place and artificial after over a year of no voices but Star's
and her own. She could only stare at him. Everything about the
situation seemed out of place and fake. His hair was too clean, she
could see now. So was his skin. His tone was light and careless; the
question was superfluous. Even the alley itself felt wrong—the
right angles were where they would have been in a real alley, years
ago. She hadn't seen right angles like that in a long time, let
alone amidst rubble. The boy was smiling faintly and she hesitated;
survival dictated suspicion.

Survival
wasn't everything, she decided in a split second, and shuffled
forward. The boy's smile broadened and he stuck out a hand. It took
Judas a moment before she remembered this now-antiquated greeting and
grasped his hand. "Hello."

"Hi!
I didn't realize there was anyone left in this area," he said. "I
think most of the gangs have left now. There isn't exactly much
left to survive on." She couldn't help but stare a little at a
person who could chatter so brightly about a dead zone.

"There's
enough left," she replied slowly. "But I don't live here.
We—I," she corrected herself, remembering caution, "live
around—"she gestured vaguely. Even if she had still been sure of
which direction the dead plain laid, she wouldn't have said. He
nodded. "And there's enough to live on. Here and there you find
the stuff that other people miss, when you look." She shrugged. He
was still nodding politely.

"I'm
Eric," he said, and then looked at her expectantly. A beat later
she replied

"Judas."
He gave pause for a moment when he heard he name, but went on
nonchalantly.

"Judas.
Pretty name. You look like you'd be pretty, too, if you weren't
half-starved." He smiled. She scowled.

"I'm
not joining a snarking gang," she snarled. "Honestly, you're
all the same. It's harder to feed more people, anyone with half of
a brain knows that—and I'm not interested in starting as the
pretty toy of the lowest ranking member." He blinked a few times at
her outburst but kept smiling.

"It's
not a gang—of any kind. I swear," he said hurriedly, and grabbed
her arm as she was turning to leave. "It's run by the government,
sort of—wait!" Judas pulled out of his grasp and darted out the
mouth of the alley, down the street.

She wasn't as fast now as she had been a few minutes before, but
she was fast enough—she thought. She soon heard him behind her
again, however, and this time he caught up with her before she
reached a dead end. He pulled up level with her and grabbed her arm
with a much harsher grip than before. "Hold on!" he yelled at her
as she began to struggle and thrash. "Just a few minutes! Just a
few!" He let go of her arm and she stopped, staring at him through
the snarled locks of hair hanging in her eyes.

"What?" she hissed, drawing herself up and shoving her hair back
behind her ears.

"Just listen," he said slowly and quietly. She almost couldn't
hear him above the thunder. "It isn't a gang and it's not the
army. It's a community, of sorts. We have a government subsidy to
try to put a neighborhood back together, and we need people. We're
stable, I swear. We get food from outside, but we're working on
producing our own, on rebuilding homes- we even have a school!" He
sounded genuinely excited, like Judas hadn't heard—like she had
never heard, really. She stared. "We won't force you to come. You
can come just to look one day, and leave any time you like! But at
least come look! We want to rebuild. We think the thunder is gone in
this area, and we want to save what's left before the last people
leave to follow the food. Please?" His voice had turned sweet and
entreating, and Judas almost couldn't help but nod. She would have
anyways, she realized later.

They made arrangements to meet a few nights later, in the store where
they had met. Then Judas watched him leave, picking his way through
the debris, before she began to look for a familiar landmark to
direct her home.

Star was starting to worry. That is, she was always worrying, but
Judas was late. Twilight had fallen, and now Star was crouching in
the dark by the cavern entrance, watching for shapes in the misty
rain.

Finally she heard some scuffling off in the distance, and saw form in
the mist. Judas arrived, soggy and distressed, and Star was waiting.
They nodded to each other as Judas entered. Star hovered outside at
the mouth while Judas stripped off her soggy scraps inside and
wrapped herself in the blanket. She came back out and both sat, back
to back, watching the grey drizzle sweep across the panorama.

"I saw someone today," Judas said after a few minutes.

"What, out on the 'scape?" Star asked after a few seconds.

"Yeah," Judas lied. "He was just out there. I tried to hide,
but he'd already seen me, and found me." She could feel Star
shuddering against her back, and wondered if it was from the thunder
or from fear. "He didn't touch me or anything. He was with the
government. Not gang." Star pulled away from her companion and
stared over her shoulder at her.

"Same difference." Judas blinked, and then nodded.

"Not the guard. Some new project, he said. Kinda like a gang, only
we won't have to look for food all the time. We can stay in one
place."

"You make it sound like we're going," Star said. "And if we
don't have to forage, what was he doing on the 'scape?"

"He didn't say." Another lie. Judas winced. "But I thought it
might be worth a look. I mean, it can't hurt, right?"

"We're getting along." Both were silent for a few minutes.

"Barely," Judas finally muttered. "Just barely. I told him we'd
meet him at one of the buildings near the 'scape—"

"I can't get there and you know it," Star replied. She turned
to face Judas full-on and glared. "I can't leave during the day.
You know it. I know it. If you want to leave, just say so and be
honest, because that's okay. I survived before you and I can do it
again." They both knew she was lying, and Judas felt a twinge of
guilt.

"It's at night, actually. We can leave again if we want! We can
stay for just a day! And it's not like anyone will touch this hole
in a god-forsaken wasteland." She finished with a snarl. She could
feel Star staring at her.

"I don't like it," she said finally. "I don't think I'll
want to stay. I think you know that. But if we go, and you want to
stay—I will too." Judas looked up sharply. She couldn't see
Star's eyes in the dark, but her shoulders were hunched and
shivering.

"But—"

"You've stayed here longer than you should have," she
interrupted. "I can do this much. It's not as big a thing as I'd
have you believe." She laughed ruefully in the dark. "I survived
people before, right? And you'll be there. That's something. We
can't forget our allegiances, even in these dark days," she
murmured.

"Thanks," Judas whispered into the dark. A few minutes later,
Star had left, stepping with a tremor-wracked foot through the
wreckage. Judas stayed up a while longer, watching the thunder in the
distance, before she crawled inside to sleep.

There were people. That was all that either of them could think of
when they first arrived at the camp—there were so many people. Men
and a few women, everyone middle-aged and younger, and yes—there
were even a few children. They darted through and over and around the
adults, now smiling and now somber. At first both had watched kids
intently, narrowly, but now only Judas watched; Star was focusing on
her trembling legs. They were closer to the thunder now, much closer,
and every misstep was a blow to her pride. Their guide—Eric has
been dragged off by a chattering young man upon their arrival—turned
to stare at her now and then, as though she was a freak.

But she had also noticed that she was, here. Among the gangs, the
whores, the scavengers, her affliction was a common enough sight, but
here nobody trembled, and nobody else's teeth chattered as hers
did, in spite of the heat. Not even the children flinched at the
thunder, and even Judas, so recently bowed by the heat and rain and
thunder, walked straighter. She even laughed. Star had never heard
her laugh before, not even before the thunder. Star blinked as the
thought hit her, held on to it for a moment, and then let it go as
she struggled to keep up with Judas and the guide.

They would be staying with the other young women. The girls they saw
didn't have the hollow-cheeked, sooty-eyed expression that Judas
always saw on Star and always suspected would be on her own
reflection. They were thin and grim, but not lost, and they flocked
around the new pair like only young girls in a limited environment
can, clucking and fussing over shredded clothes and matted, filthy
hair.

They got to have baths. There were now showers or hot water,
of course, but there was an old swimming pool that had been cleared
of dibris and filled with clean water. After they were done one of
the girls, Heather, gave them new clothes and trimmed their hair.
They were almost shaved by the time all the snares and matting were
gone, but Judas was just happy to be clean.

"Eric should be by this evening to tell you what you'll be doing
tomorrow," Heather said as she led them back to their quarters.
"You'll be paired up with someone that knows what they're doing
until you learn, of course. But you'd be amazed how simple most of
the chores are." She hovered in the doorway a moment, watching Star
unpack in a corner while Judas rearranged a rag-stuffed mattress. "We
even have our own garden. That's my favorite," she said dreamily.

"Oh, I hope I get to work there," Judas said, looking up. "I
used to have a garden, you know. Before."

"I'll ask for you, then," Heather said cheerfully. "Most
people don't like working out in the open." She lingered a moment
longer, watching the pair, before Star finished and looked up,
staring at her. After a moment she nodded quickly and left.

Star admitted that she liked the community, albeit grudgingly. It was
tidy and orderly and quieter than she remembered her neighborhood
being, back before the bombs. They had let her work at night, too.
The first night she had wandered out of the building while Judas lay
asleep. It was a warm, sweet night, and there was a bonfire in the
street. Eric had invited them to it, but Judas was used to sleeping
after nightfall, and Star had declined naturally without Judas as
company. But she had sought out the fires after all, and talked some
with Eric. His eyes had gleamed in the harsh light, and his smile had
been more than a little twisted. She approved, in her own way. The
world was twisted, so the people ought to be, too. But he had
listened to her quiet words, and called over the laughing boy he had
left with earlier, and made arrangements.

The kitchen wasn't a favorite place to work, but the chores were
very simple—peel roots, dice vegetables, mind or stir what the
cooks—a trio of dark-eyed and angry young women—told her to.
Mostly she peeled tubers on the stoop, watching the children flirt
down dusky streets like moths.

She cut herself more than a few times. The first few nights one of
the cooks had always been scolding her for carelessness. But they
lost interest or gave it up for lost soon enough, since she didn't
complain and washed the blood off everything quickly. The important
thing was that she wasn't cutting herself any more often. The
progress of the tremors, at lest, seemed to have slowed, and each
night Star caught herself thinking that the thunder was a little
farther off, now—a little more distant.

Judas, too, seemed more distant. Now that their schedules were
regulated and timed by others, they barely passed greetings in the
twilight anymore. Each evening Star felt a sun-warm body next to her
own, just before she rose, and each morning she lay close to the
cool, still form of her companion, but otherwise they scarcely
crossed paths.

And that was the limit of her life. To be sure, now and again she
crossed paths with one of the girls from her building, but mostly the
worked during the day. Now and then Eric would drop by the kitchen to
say hello and watch her carve a few tedious spuds, but just as before
she had her thoughts. The only difference was that now she watched
the children play by the fires, rather than watching the bombs.

The concrete and rebar were shuddering all around her, and the thick
dust wracked her with deep, hollow coughs. Judas gagged and squeezed
her eyes shut, pulling her shirt up over her nose. Star was watching
nearby, she knew, shuddering so had she might as well have been
having a seizure, but vigilant. She felt a hand pressed into her own
and squeezed it, holding it steady through the paroxysms.

The bombs hadn't been expected. They had been moving steadily
farther away, everyone agreed. She had talked to Heather about it as
they picked peas and weeded, laughing. The weather had made a change
to more frequently sunny, and the earth had been warm and musky under
their feet. Judas hadn't worn shoes in weeks.

Heather, she was pretty sure, was dead. Star and Judas had been
housed on the bottom floor of the building, in a rock-steady corner.
That evening when she had gotten home, Star had been waiting for her
in the farthest corner of the room, wrapped in all of their rags and
her own convulsions. Judas had been too worried to leave and get
help, and it had proved fortunate enough. As she sat and rocked her
friend, the bombing had begun—and it was only through a miracle,
either chance or Star's good planning, that the walls happened to
collapse just so: on every side and above, but not directly on them.
Now Judas inched closer and they held each other, shuddering in
unison as the world around them shivered into oblivion.

Things were different after the collapse—that was what they called
it, not the bombing. There were still enough intact buildings that
all the survivors had shelter—and there were quite a few, as a
scavenging part had been out, and back in time to dig out a number of
survivors. There were still enough supplies to go around, although
the garden had been decimated. But the children were gone, and all of
the younger women Star and Judas had died in the building. Judas had
found Heather with her skull crushed as they had picked through the
rubble.

One of the cooks, the youngest sister, had died, but the other two
slaved on. A little more tight-lipped, a little more harsh, but
whole. Star had kept working in the kitchen, too, although Judas
frowned each morning to find fresh gouges up and down her arms. The
tremors were getting worse, even though the thunder was gone. Even in
her sleep, she had to be held still.

And now Judas followed Eric on his missions—scavenging and
recruiting, mostly. She fed other young girls the same lines Eric had
bribed her with, although she had never met a single government man.
She didn't see much of anyone outside the community anymore, not
even a roving gang or two. Just the occasional teenager, most
half-starved and shivering.

The bonfires were gone, and where there had once been laughter there
were only half-hummed dirges, songs that had survived and thrived in
worse times. Every now and again she caught Star staring off at the
clouds where the thunder had once been, humming tunelessly.

Judas spent a lot of time where the garden had once been, tending the
rotted weeds.

14

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